Slaves Of Society : The Women Of Les Liaisons Dangereuses

The admiration of courtly love is no more prevalent theme in Marie's lais than on “Yonec” and “Lanval”. These two lais are showing very aristocratic views on socially states; love of nobility. A love that cannot be explained by a commoner or peasant that cannot show status has nothing to offer, for courtly love because a peasant has no chivalry. This courtly love is often secret in that a knight and a lady are not married to one another but to a different partner making the story adulterous. That secret at the end makes the story ecstatic and tragic; the adhesive of the story is the passion of love that is displayed making the store ecstatic and the secret is the tragedy that love cannot be acknowledged. The principal argument of this essay is to understand courtly love in Marie de France’s lais.

It is my intention to compare the book, Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, to its modern movie version, Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I intend to examine how the original French text was modified in reference to plot, character, morals/values, and themes. I also plan to discuss how these transformations change the meaning of the story and reflect different cultural/historical contexts. There are some major differences between these two works, if only because of when they were written.

It takes a great amount of bravery to criticize one’s country. It takes an even greater amount to suggest that this criticism stems from gender inequality that one’s society so willingly accepts. Renowned French novelist Françoise de Graffigny took the initiative to point out the caustic gender inequality that was so pervasive throughout French society by use of her novel Letters From a Peruvian Woman. In this novel, Graffigny criticizes various aspects of gender inequality in French society through the lens of Zilia, a Peruvian woman and Other who found herself captured and forced into French society. Through Zilia’s encounters, Graffigny molds the opinion that the ills in French society are caused by the harsh treatment of its female citizens. Françoise de Graffigny uses Zilia from Letters from a Peruvian Woman to critique the inferior role of women in French society and the destruction it entailed in regards to the lack of education among women, the damaging restraints that marriage created for women, and the unjust, presumed behavior for women.

Lope de Vega’s play touches upon several key components and ideas that were brought up in many of the other stories read throughout the semester. This included the role of gender and how men and women are viewed differently in the Spaniard town of Fuenteovejuna. Another topic included the importance of family, love, and relationships and their connection on loyalty, trust, and personal beliefs. The last major influence found in other literature and in Fuenteovejuna, were the political and religious references made throughout the play. Even though Lope de Vega didn’t make these views obvious, the reader could still pick up on their connotation and the references made towards these specific ideas. With all of this in mind, each of these

The Prioress’s eagerness to impress Ambrosio, the celebrity of Madrid sheds light on her ambition which is further illustrated in a later scene during the Procession where the Prioress harboured “secret pride at displaying the pomp and opulence of her Convent” (269). These details underline how the Prioress essentially treats St. Clare Convent as her own domain where she can gain fulfilment by enhancing its prestige. As such, she subjects Agnes to “all the rigour of which severe laws admit” as a vengeance over her injured pride. Her fixation on her own aspiration at the expense of others which verges on cruelty is represented by her indifference towards Agnes’s “tears and sighs” which demonstrates her “penitence” and “contrition”. (177) The Prioress metes out extreme punishment to Agnes despite other nuns including Mother Camilla and Mother St. Ursula supplicating her to “mitigate the severity of [Agnes’s] sentence” because she deems ruthless treatment of Agnes as the only way to “convince Ambrosio that [she] abhors such crimes” (177). The Prioress’s tendency to abuse power is further exacerbated by the fact that she exercises “absolute will” in St. Clare Convent as shown by her dismissal of the “opposition to [her] will and assertion that those supplications “will be unavailing” because “[her]

In the short story, The Old Chevalier by Isak Dinsen, the male protagonist, Baron von Brackel reflects on his past sexual encounters with two women whose personalities are extremely different from one another. In many novels, short stories and comics authors would create two women as “polar opposites” for a man’s sexual and/or possessive gaze, which is evident in the text. In order to understand, why a man may be attracted to different character traits in women, I will examine The Baron’s attraction to Nathalie and The Mistress by looking at how literary works men portray women, what they find attractive and the fulfilment that men seek from a woman.

true worth of women and their roles because she is headstrong. Today, women are similarly

These two novels depict women in Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ Marquise and Fantomina’s titular character who are unusually empowered. The two are high-born socialites who enjoy good reputations in society, wealth, and standing. They also take a distanced view toward sex and sexual fulfillment—the Marquise, after a long career of seduction, views it as a game played earnestly by others, while Fantomina uses love and sex as a means to unprecedented social freedom of movement. This positions the two heroines in complex ways with respect to sensibility. Each acknowledges and usurps the received notions of female modesty and artifice to achieve

This challenging of the democracy is discernible in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, perhaps most palpably in terms of this exposure of the aristocratic corruption detailed through letter correspondence between characters. The epistolary form may be said to add a degree of verisimilitude to the text, since there is likely to be semblance of the narrative and reality, and the practice of voyeurism is evident since the reader is party to the private and intimate endeavours of each of the characters in the novel. These techniques represent an acceptance of Enlightenment philosophy, because they support the discovery of truth and insight into the reality of French eighteenth century society. However, some might conversely argue that reality is effectively filtered through the consciousness of the letters’ correspondents; such a personal form is inevitably

This paper will present an analysis of The School of Wives by Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin). The Schools of wives mocks men and their fear of being made weak. The main character believes men are naturally smarter by women. This forces him to commit most of his time in working on how to create an ignorant woman. Molière’s’ The school for wives once appeared as a Christmas novelty. It is a play that has comedy. In this case humor was used to pass a serious message. Taking care of our servants is passed to us in a humorous way. Also treating our wives more than just objects used humor to pass the message to us. The title leads us on what to expect. The central situation is arbitrary and jealous lovers. The circumstances have given all

Love in the Time of Cholera is a skilfully crafted novel in which Gabriel Garcia Marquez takes the reader on the labyrinthine love journey of the two characters, Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza. The novel, which is told by a non-judgemental omniscient narrator, reveals love in a multi-faceted manner that may seem conventional on the surface, yet, the portrayal of love has been adeptly designed to incorporate the novel’s historical context. The story takes place between the late nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, in a Caribbean seaport city in Colombia. The context of both time and place intertwines social traditions, economic hierarchies and political ideologies that collectively play a role in the characters’ development. The development of Fermina and Florentino’s characters reveals differentiated worldviews on gender issues; these perceptions are displayed through their exhibition of love to each other and minor characters. In Love in the Time of Cholera, Marquez blatantly tells the novel in a non-prejudicial way which focuses on the revolutionising dominant patriarchal ideologies and attitudes. Hence, a feminist lens will be used to explore the explicit and implicit characterisation of Fermina and Florentino.

Dangerous Liaisons is an epistolary novel written in the 1700s detailing the events of a set of high-class people and their conquests for love and revenge. One of the many characteristics of this novel that make it unique is the French language used in the novel and the way the novel is written. The language and word choices are features that are important to a deeper understanding of the novel. The language used is specific to French culture and society and therefore the language creates a different understanding of the text. The language and untranslatable words in Dangerous Liaisons help to understand the culture and society of the characters in the text for an overall better understanding of the text.

Boccaccio’s Decameron is a revolutionary text not only because of its irreverent attitude toward courtly love, but also due to its portrayal of female autonomy, not something that was necessarily common in the fourteenth century. Not only did women in The Decameron initiate their own relationships and seek out sexual pleasure, many of them also refused to submit to men, and some even went as far as to commit suicide rather than lose control of their own bodies.

Of course, Cécile and the chevalier Danceny continue to wax poetic about their love for each other even in the dying stages of Les Liaisons. Danceny is able to say “the thought of Cécile often loomed up to disturb me and perhaps my heart never paid her a more sincere tribute than when I was being unfaithful to her”, showing how the defiling episode devised by the Marquise only served to strengthen this true love affair (De Laclos, 1995).[2] It is in this way the theme of libertinism in Les Liaisons and in 18th-century literature receives a counterpoint. The relationships between men and women portrayed in both Fantomina and Les Liaisons are complicated (McAlpin, 2009). Though the Marquise and Fantomina each are skillful and wily, they are also dominated by men at various points in the narrative. Libertinism is liberating for at least a moment, but it carries great risks that even a high-born society woman can crumble beneath. The Marquise begins Les Liaisons quite dismissive of the character and ability of Cécile, but in the end admits ‘defeat’ to her, as Cécile repels the attempts of the Marquise to make her cynical, both about love and, crucially, about men.

Well-read authors often write within a framework constructed by their predecessors, either in agreement with, or arguing against prior writers’ values and ideas. Marie de France’s literary access to Ovid’s work provided her with the ability to engage in a dialogue with The Art of Love (2 AD) through her own work. Ovid’s depiction of romance and courtship in The Art of Love provides a moral and romantic framework in which Marie constructs her lais (12th cent.). Her characters counter many of the ideals outlined in Ovid’s work, such as men as dominant actors in their own fates and women as passive receptacles for male action. Specifically, differences in depictions of the predator and prey status of men versus women in Ovid’s The Art of Love directly oppose those in Marie’s Bisclavret, highlighting Marie’s questioning of patriarchal standards for how normative men and women should act in regards to love and romance.